Overall decline in quality at DRM

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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby Desire2424 » Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:32 pm

The avocado shortage has had more of an effect on PRICING than availability. At our favorite Mexican restaurant up here in NY, our go-to appetizer is fresh guacamole with shredded beef short rib (mmmm). Last time we ordered, we noticed an overwhelming amount of beef to guacamole ratio in the dish. When questioned, the waiter said that as per the chef, the MEAT is cheaper than the avacodos these days! It’s likely that in times of a shortage, the bulk of the supplies are diverted from Mexican resorts and going to the highest payers like us schmucks in the US...lol
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby Justskin » Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:59 pm

As with most comments here, our experiences at DRM and Pearl over the years have been amazing, including the food.
That said, with our last visit in September our experience at the Italian restaurant was brutal.
Our meal took two hours overall to receive. We started a conversation with another adjacent table with the sole purpose of cryptically stealing their bread as we never received any.. (it worked! much to the laughter of both tables.) And we failed to get several of our orders with our meal.
I was approached at the end of dinner by the jefe, and we discussed it. He was very disappointed that dinner was so bad. I was reluctant to complain, it isn't our style especially at Desire, but as I told him, he asked.

About 1:30 am
, I was approached in the disco by one of the waiters from that restaurant, he begged to apologize and invited us back for the next night.
I told him that we departed that next day, and I assured him that it was probably just an off-night there. (I hope it was.)
I was shocked at the overall desire to make things right with our situation. Staff was noticeably unhappy that we had experienced a bad night at that restaurant, and frankly that hasn't happened before.
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby BashfulDesires » Mon Jan 22, 2018 3:25 am

In October, Guac was terrible. Way too much onion left it inedible.

We're big-city metropolis food snobs, Sahlo was much improved, we've found the fish to be the most edible, the beef is never good, pasta was always overcooked/mushy. The food & beverage manager confirmed he just cant afford quality beef that meets USA diners standards.

Lunch buffet had us avoiding every one of the mystery meats covered in sauce. Best bet is to order off the grill or tell your waiter to order off the grill for you. The specialty station was either not ready or out of food.

Members dinner was very nice, good food, avoid the lamb, get the salmon.

The Bar - we complained to everyone who would listen. Don Julio was never stocked and if they got it, we got 1 bottle for the whole day. Saw it in the Disco bar 3x out of 8 nights. GreyGoose, lucky if they had a bottle at any bar. Chivas - we got 1 bottle per night at the disco and only had it 5x out of 8 nights.
Hot Tub bar - Liquer 43 available 2x nights, Don Julio maybe 2x out of 8.

Bartenders got tired of being asked and would just say YES, then pour you Absolut or Cuervo Tradicional like you wouldnt care or notice. Absolut Mandarin & Absolut regular ran out at the pool bar one day and they started reaching for the well.

Completely unacceptable at $450/night and it was clear it was a cost cutting move.
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby tommer » Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:10 am

We feel a need to defend RM and Pearl. We have visited both resorts multiple times. We have never been disappointed ... always more than appreciative of the staff, the food/drink and the whole experience. Admittedly, we are not food snobs, so perhaps we don't have the finely tuned palate of some. Of hundreds of meals eaten, we have been disappointed only a couple of times. Likewise, we can remember only a rare occasion when the bar didn't have our preferred drink. I guess we go to Desire to have fun, enjoy ourselves and meet all the wonderful staff and visitors. We spend these treasured days ... Smiling! We are confident that if there have been some recent issues, management will quickly amend those concerns. We plan to offer some firsthand feedback after we return from our March adventure.
Last edited by tommer on Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby canuck63 » Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:13 am

tommer wrote:We are feeling a need to defend RM and Pearl. We have visited both resorts multiple times. We have never been disappointed ... always more than appreciative of the staff, the food/drink and the whole experience. Admittedly, we are not food snobs, so perhaps we don't have the finely tuned palate of some. Of hundreds of meals eaten, we have been disappointed ..... maybe 2 or 3 times. Likewise, we can remember only a rare occasion when the bar didn't have our preferred drink. I guess we go to Desire to have fun, enjoy ourselves and meet all the wonderful staff and visitors. We spend these treasured days ... Smiling! We are confident that if there have been some recent issues, management will quickly amend those concerns. We plan to offer some firsthand feedback after we return from our March adventure.

We couldn't agree with you more Tommer & Mrs Tommer!
:L :L :L
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby Explorer79 » Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:24 am

Interesting, we were there in October but didn't have any of those issues other than the guac, had Don Julio every day without any problems, for example. I wonder if this was during the event at Temptations, a bunch of staff from RM were "borrowed" for that from what I remember.
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby Yeipi » Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:25 am

tommer wrote:We feel a need to defend RM and Pearl. We have visited both resorts multiple times. We have never been disappointed ... always more than appreciative of the staff, the food/drink and the whole experience. Admittedly, we are not food snobs, so perhaps we don't have the finely tuned palate of some. Of hundreds of meals eaten, we have been disappointed only a couple of times. Likewise, we can remember only a rare occasion when the bar didn't have our preferred drink. I guess we go to Desire to have fun, enjoy ourselves and meet all the wonderful staff and visitors. We spend these treasured days ... Smiling! We are confident that if there have been some recent issues, management will quickly amend those concerns. We plan to offer some firsthand feedback after we return from our March adventure.


:L
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby Justskin » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:58 pm

Explorer79 wrote:I..... wonder if this was during the event at Temptations, a bunch of staff from RM were "borrowed" for that from what I remember.


Excellent point, we had heard that as well.

Normally everything is top shelf in our experience. When something isn't, it probably really stands out for that reason.
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby AandJ » Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:27 pm

If you can tell the quality has gone down, you're not drinking enough :lol:
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby Lkncouple » Wed Jan 24, 2018 11:52 am

We just returned late last night from 5 days there. We really did not experience much of what others complained of, so maybe they took the feedback from here to heart.

- Plenty of top shelf liquor, it was available anytime we asked. Lots of Don Julio.
- I know one person complained about them no longer giving out straws. They offered us straw anytime we ordered a frozen drink.
- I thought the food was the same if not better than it has been in the past.
- Service was generally excellent

Areas we thought were a decline:
- One night they only had one bartender at the hot tub. This was really bad, and there were horrible lines for a drinks. Want to save money on alcohol? You don't have to limit the supply, you limit the distribution. That being said it was only one night.
- The biggest area that we saw as a huge disappointment and really made it feel like the quality was down was with the Playmakers. It is a shame that they have such big turnover in this area, and I think the company should do something to try to retain them. I think they have the biggest impact on people's perception of the resort. In the past, I felt the games and the playmakers were extremely engaging. This group has very limited personality. It may because many of them are new, but if you have lots of turnover, you are going to get lots of new people. There were times that there were 2 hours that nothing went on at the pool in the middle of the day. And days where the biggest pool activity was "Name that tune". When they finally do have an activity they do them at the same time, they played water volleyball and beach volleyball at the same time every day we were there. They have basically the same activity and splitting participants. At night when the bands were playing, many times you would just see the playmakers out dancing by themselves. Not talking to anyone or encouraging the group. One night my wife and watch Anna, just dance for an hour and not talk to a single person. Don't get me wrong, I think if I had to work for 12-16 hours for 6 days straight, I think I would get tired of talking to the same people and would become disengaged as well.

They desperately need some creativity in the games and they certainly could have giveaways that could get people more involved. They could do things like pass out something to everyone by the pool and have them find their match. There is just way to much down time. Seems like there could be something going on between 7:30-9:30 Happy hour at the beach bar or on the gazebo. More sex related classes, When we were there Lola Bastinado taught a BDSM class that was awesome. We learned something, then it turned into 20 couples having sex in the disco it was very hot and different.

I think, if it were my company, I think I would blow this up and start over. I think this is the area that I have seen the biggest decline.
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby brewandsue » Wed Jan 24, 2018 11:59 am

Lkncouple wrote:We just returned late last night from 5 days there. We really did not experience much of what others complained of, so maybe they took the feedback from here to heart.

- Plenty of top shelf liquor, it was available anytime we asked. Lots of Don Julio.
- I know one person complained about them no longer giving out straws. They offered us straw anytime we ordered a frozen drink.
- I thought the food was the same if not better than it has been in the past.
- Service was generally excellent

Areas we thought were a decline:
- One night they only had one bartender at the hot tub. This was really bad, and there were horrible lines for a drinks. Want to save money on alcohol? You don't have to limit the supply, you limit the distribution. That being said it was only one night.
- The biggest area that we saw as a huge disappointment and really made it feel like the quality was down was with the Playmakers. It is a shame that they have such big turnover in this area, and I think the company should do something to try to retain them. I think they have the biggest impact on people's perception of the resort. In the past, I felt the games and the playmakers were extremely engaging. This group has very limited personality. It may because many of them are new, but if you have lots of turnover, you are going to get lots of new people. There were times that there were 2 hours that nothing went on at the pool in the middle of the day. And days where the biggest pool activity was "Name that tune". When they finally do have an activity they do them at the same time, they played water volleyball and beach volleyball at the same time every day we were there. They have basically the same activity and splitting participants. At night when the bands were playing, many times you would just see the playmakers out dancing by themselves. Not talking to anyone or encouraging the group. One night my wife and watch Anna, just dance for an hour and not talk to a single person. Don't get me wrong, I think if I had to work for 12-16 hours for 6 days straight, I think I would get tired of talking to the same people and would become disengaged as well.

They desperately need some creativity in the games and they certainly could have giveaways that could get people more involved. They could do things like pass out something to everyone by the pool and have them find their match. There is just way to much down time. Seems like there could be something going on between 7:30-9:30 Happy hour at the beach bar or on the gazebo. More sex related classes, When we were there Lola Bastinado taught a BDSM class that was awesome. We learned something, then it turned into 20 couples having sex in the disco it was very hot and different.

I think, if it were my company, I think I would blow this up and start over. I think this is the area that I have seen the biggest decline.


Thanks for your detailed input after your recent trip! Bear in mind that this site is not run by Original Resorts management. If people want the managers and owners to pay attention, we have to make sure to let them know when filling out the checkout questionnaire and by direct emails and phone calls to customer service. All of us with concerns have to speak up.
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby Lkncouple » Wed Jan 24, 2018 2:17 pm

We did provide feedback on our exit survey. That being said, this is a phenomenal resource for the owners of that property to get great feedback on their product. If I owned that property, I would have someone here every day reviewing this, learning and improving based on the trip reports and feedback. I am sure anyone here that is a business owner would LOVE to have a site of fans dedicated to their product promoting and talking about it every day. The fact that they are not here answering questions and providing feedback and reaching out to their community tells alot about the leadership/ownership of the resort.
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby Yeipi » Wed Jan 24, 2018 2:26 pm

We came back home on Saturday after 3 nights there and I have to agree with Lkncouple. Everything was excellent, staff was always great and the food was AAA+. In regards to the playmakers, I also agree with the lack of engagement. We have been there 7 or 8 times and this was the first trip when nobody approached us to invite us to play the games. Nobody...

But the biggest disappointment was the lack of respect for the "No Smoking" signs in the jacuzzi. People were smoking not only at the jacuzzi bar but also when they were in the water. And nobody said a word. We mentioned that in the survey when we left so hopefully the management takes care of that.
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby Explorer79 » Wed Jan 24, 2018 7:13 pm

Yeipi wrote:In regards to the playmakers, I also agree with the lack of engagement. We have been there 7 or 8 times and this was the first trip when nobody approached us to invite us to play the games. Nobody...


It took 4 trips but finally on the 4th trip we were able to do a foam party this past October. This was very eye opening in regards to the whole pool vibe. They should really be doing something along those lines every day - doesn't have to be foam, but something. To clarify, I'm not saying this because of any foam party debauchery - in this case there really was none (would've been fine too though!). What was really striking is that the staff was WAY more energetic about getting the crowd going, a stark contrast to the many other days we've spent at the pool. Once that spark was provided the crowd took it from there.

And it's not that it was some wild and crazy extravaganza (again, that would be fine with us too) but it just got the whole crowd way more involved with each other. There was lots more socializing, there was lots more meeting people that we hand't talked to, more groups forming, merging and reforming and this phenomenon was typical across the entire crowd. The vibe carried over to the hot tub session - all in all it was one of the best Desire days ever and really showed what is possible.

The crowd clearly responds well to this sort of thing, but I think many people are not going to get the ball rolling, this is where the playmakers and the activities can make a big difference. Even the people who were not participating seemed more engaged even if they were just watching. Lots of untapped potential here.
\m/
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Re: Overall decline in quality at DRM

Postby Yeipi » Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:11 pm

Breakthrough wrote:We, for one, are going to start complaining WHILE we're there, instead of at the "exit interview". You can't fault the resort for allowing it if, from their perspective, it seems like it's just making their guests happier. If no one is complaining, how could they know?


I think that is what the exit interview is for. If they ask for feedback to improve their service and many guests complain about something in particular, that should be enough to realize they should do something about it.
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